No matter how obsessive you may be about maintaining your home, some parts of the home-owning experience are out of your control. Unexpected home expenses are an inevitable part of home ownership, but some things you may not even think about because you simply don’t see them. Extended home coverage is here to help.

Big expenses and the need for massive repairs can come from a lot of places. There are the obvious culprits like hail and wind damage, but there are also hidden ones like underground tree roots and stray mice chewing up electrical wiring. There’s just no way for you to cover every angle. Especially the hidden ones underground and inside your appliances.

But, you guessed it, there’s hope! You can add some endorsements to your homeowners insurance policy that extend coverage to some of those unseen perils and unforeseen circumstances.

Out of sight. Out of mind.
Utility Line Coverage

What the heck’s a utility line or service line?

Utility lines or service lines are exterior underground piping and wiring that provide heat, water, waste disposal, data, or power to your home. They’re the lines into your home from the utility companies.

Utility line coverage is great because you may not realize that you can be financially responsible for repairing and replacing these lines if damaged. That’s called a majorly unexpected home expense. Further, most homeowner insurance policies don’t cover service line failure, leaving you potentially on the hook for repairs that can easily run thousands of dollars and even make your home temporarily uninhabitable.

Underground lines can fail due to a surprisingly wide range of hidden issues, including rust or corrosion; wear and tear; latent defects; damage from insects, rodents, and other animals; freezing; root invasion; artificially generated electrical current; and the weight of vehicles or other equipment. That’s a ton!

In many cases, service line repair will entail digging up landscaping, driveways, and sidewalks to access the site of the line break. Sometimes—for example, if the line provides heat during cold weather—your home may need to be vacated until repairs are made.

In addition to repairing the line, service line coverage includes the costs of repairing or replacing outdoor property like trees, shrubs, plants, lawns, and sidewalks. If your home must be vacated, it also pays for additional living expenses like hotels and meals.

Here’s a scenario.

A tree root intrusion cracks a sewer line outside your home, and landscaping is damaged while accessing and repairing the leaking pipe. Coverage for the line repair and damaged landscaping is $7,650.

There isn’t much a homeowner can do to prevent or even evaluate the aging of underground lines, especially if the system is old or vulnerable to tree root intrusion. Service line coverage can protect against large, unexpected repair expenses and help make the incident less disruptive to your life and home.

Stuff breaks.
Equipment Breakdown Coverage

Another source of unexpected costs for homeowners is equipment breakdown. This involves malfunctioning home appliances, furnaces, air conditioning and heating systems, or other essential home equipment. Equipment breakdown coverage closes coverage gaps in your standard homeowners insurance. It responds the same way a homeowners policy does and includes coverage for electrical, mechanical, or pressure equipment that suffers an equipment breakdown. This coverage eases the burden of budgeting for unexpected losses from big-ticket items breaking down.

An example of an equipment breakdown claim might be a power surge causing electrical damage to numerous pieces of equipment in your home. The television, refrigerator, microwave oven, dishwasher, garage door opener, and air conditioning system were all damaged. The costs of repairs and replacements are $4,700. Equipment breakdown coverage would help cover the replacement cost of all the destroyed equipment.

Is it expensive?

It’s actually more affordable than you might think. The actual cost for you will depend on your existing homeowners coverage and what endorsements your insurer offers, but it’s generally not too bad.

Not every insurer offers these endorsements, but even if yours doesn’t, we can easily give you prices on moving your home insurance to an insurance company that does.

Get in touch with us anytime about adding extended home coverage with these handy endorsements to your insurance policy and let’s all mellow out about those unexpected expenses.